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jsharnowski5-Regular Member
5-Regular Member
February 3, 2011
Question

Announcing the release of Arbortext 5.3 M220

  • February 3, 2011
  • 5 replies
  • 1363 views
Available for immediate downloading from PTC's support site is the
Arbortext 5.3 M220 release.



This maintenance release includes bug fixes only. If you want to know
all the details about this release, please check out the release notes
<">https://www.ptc.com/view?im_dbkey=123075> . If you have any questions
about the release schedule, please reference the PTC Product Calendar
at:







    5 replies

    P
    ptc-30501501-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    February 7, 2011
    Knowing we'll be moving a new small as-yet unwritten manual to S1000D late this year but needing to write it now, as far as converting it later goes, would you suggest a DITA DTD? Or DocBook?

    I converted a 20-page document into DocBookx from Word (was able to get docbookx 4.5 installed on the Print Engine) and was happy with the ease of use and simplicity (this isn't a computer manual but it worked alright) although I definitely need to learn how to hide most of its overly abundant tags! Before I did, I thought I'd ask if maybe one of the DITA DTDs that come with Arbortext would be more appropriate.

    Thanks,
    John T. Jarrett
    BAE Systems
    P
    ptc-9533431-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    February 7, 2011
    I would say DITA. DITA is topic based and modular. I suppose you could
    write in DocBook that way, but the tendancy would be to blur the lines
    between descriptive (concepts) vs proceduaral data. Force the writers to
    deal with linking the modules together, creating a map of their contents,
    etc. instead of allowing them to write a hydraulics chapter.

    If you had the stylesheets, I would say it would be possible to keep a
    simple S1000D environment going. Just ignore all the version management
    stuff. The biggest overhead would probably be creating the data module
    code and assigning it to the proper SNS structure.

    ..dan

    > Knowing we'll be moving a new small as-yet unwritten manual to S1000D late
    > this year but needing to write it now, as far as converting it later goes,
    > would you suggest a DITA DTD? Or DocBook?
    >
    > I converted a 20-page document into DocBookx from Word (was able to get
    > docbookx 4.5 installed on the Print Engine) and was happy with the ease of
    > use and simplicity (this isn't a computer manual but it worked alright)
    > although I definitely need to learn how to hide most of its overly
    > abundant tags! Before I did, I thought I'd ask if maybe one of the DITA
    > DTDs that come with Arbortext would be more appropriate.
    >
    > Thanks,
    > John T. Jarrett
    > BAE Systems
    >
    P
    ptc-30501501-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    February 8, 2011
    Thanks, Dan...good to know. Is there a particular DITA you'd recommend starting with? We are looking at the standard small format glove box operators manual (Dan as you know, isn't like our trucks actually HAVE glove boxes, but that is a different story), larger format illustrated parts breakdown (ala RPSTL), table-based simplified troubleshooting and preventive maintenance - maybe 4 smallish manuals total in two page sizes for both PDF and web.

    DITA SMA video looked like super fast start up but probably too simplified.

    Appreciate it.

    John T. Jarrett CDT
    Senior Tech Writer, Integrated Logistics Support,Land & Armaments/Global Tactical Systems

    T832.673.2147 | M 832.363.7234 | F 832.673.2376| x1147 | -
    BAE Systems, 5000 I-10 West, Sealy, Texas USA 77474
    www.baesystems.com

    P
    ptc-9533431-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    February 8, 2011
    There really is only one DITA, but like S1000D it is comprised of
    different module types that have their own DTD/Schema. So you will be
    using several schemas to complete the task. Does SMA = the Arbortext
    Service Manual application? That is just a specilaization of the DITA that
    Arbortext has created along with some processing. I've never actually done
    much with it, so I'm not sure what it would offer over just plain DITA.

    You say this is too simplified, do you have an example? There would be no
    direct support for RPSTL stuff, so those would be plain tables (unless SMA
    did a specialization).

    Has the interdivision relationships gotten easier in the last year? You
    might contact my old group in KY and see if you could piggyback off their
    S1000D licenses.

    Printing in either the DITA/SMA or S1000D environments will probably take
    some customization to get the smaller manual format and you probably won't
    like them as mil-spec formats as well, so I would look into that aspect as
    well as what the DTD would support. Was the comment about being simplified
    related to the formatting?

    ..dan


    > Thanks, Dan...good to know. Is there a particular DITA you'd recommend
    > starting with? We are looking at the standard small format glove box
    > operators manual (Dan as you know, isn't like our trucks actually HAVE
    > glove boxes, but that is a different story), larger format illustrated
    > parts breakdown (ala RPSTL), table-based simplified troubleshooting and
    > preventive maintenance - maybe 4 smallish manuals total in two page sizes
    > for both PDF and web.
    >
    > DITA SMA video looked like super fast start up but probably too
    > simplified.
    >
    > Appreciate it.
    >
    > John T. Jarrett CDT
    > Senior Tech Writer, Integrated Logistics Support,Land & Armaments/Global
    > Tactical Systems
    >
    > T832.673.2147 | M 832.363.7234 | F 832.673.2376| x1147 |
    > -
    > BAE Systems, 5000 I-10 West, Sealy, Texas USA 77474
    > www.baesystems.com
    >
    >
    P
    ptc-30501501-Visitor
    1-Visitor
    February 8, 2011
    "Simplified" was referring to the SMA demo video on PTC.

    Yeah getting the stylesheets built is going to be an endeavor. I'm too busy to learn it so by the end of the year, we might have a new set for these DITA manuals, a new S1000D set from Trilogi, plus a new set for whatever S1000D we end up going with.

    Good point - I'll email Kentucky. I went out and met with Flanders in York on EMS-NG, but they aren't doing either DITA or S1000D. Have a call at ten am with PTC about implementing S1000D in a few months to see what databases they support and all that.

    Right now, I've tried opening a few DITA docs in the ditarefs directories, but it doesn't automatically find the DTDs, and the ones I can find it throws a variety of errors on why that DTD won't work. Just glad to see it has DTDs...I don't do schemas yet.

    John T. Jarrett CDT
    Senior Tech Writer, Integrated Logistics Support,Land & Armaments/Global Tactical Systems

    T832.673.2147 | M 832.363.7234 | F 832.673.2376| x1147 | -
    BAE Systems, 5000 I-10 West, Sealy, Texas USA 77474
    www.baesystems.com

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